The Head in the Fire
by LeggyLassie
Summary: “What if you’d been seen?” said Hermione anxiously. “Well, I think a girl- first year- might’ve got a glimpse of me earlier, but don’t worry,” Sirius said hastily“I was gone the moment she looked back at me- I’ll bet she just thought I w


_"What if you'd been seen?" said Hermione anxiously._

_"Well, I think a girl- first year by the book of her- might've got a glimpse of me earlier, but don't worry," Sirius said hastily as Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth.  "I was gone the moment she looked back at me and I'll bet she just thought I was an oddly shaped log or something."  _

_~OotP, American Edition, page 301_

Kayla sighed and put her quill down on top of the enormous stack of books in front of her.  She was sitting in a chair near the fire in the Gryffindor common room, her favorite spot that she had discovered on her second day at Hogwarts.  Her potions essay lay in front of her, full of blots where the ink had spilled, and many crossed out words.  She shuddered as she remembered Professor Snape leering at her over the steaming cauldron.  "If you want to survive my class for the next five years, Miss Griffin," he had sneered, "You will have to learn that when I say TWO DROPS of armadillo bile, I mean two drops.  I assume your thick skull can penetrate the fact that it is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE PURPLE?"

  She HAD to finish this essay; Snape had made it clear that she had better shape up, and oh! She shuddered to think what Mum would say if she got a note home.  She imagined Mum's shocked face.  She could hear Mum's voice over and over in her head. 

_"Your father loved potions- he always was the best in the year.  He had such a way with it- 'It's science' he would tell me-  he almost made a career out of it, too, but then he went and became an auror.  He was always courageous, your Dad- wanted to help people…maybe that's where you get your bravery from…"_

Kayla shook her head to clear it- it wouldn't do any good to think of that now.  

Kayla decided to try to work on Charms for a bit but was finding it difficult to tune out those fifth years who were sitting near her.   A girl with bushy brown hair had jus wandered over.  The red haired boy sitting near her looked pleading.  And beside him was….Kayla did a double take; THE Harry Potter!!  She leaned closer and tried to hear what they were saying.  

            "Jupiter's biggest moon is Ganymede, not Callisto," the girl was saying, pointing at something on a sheet of parchment, "And it's Io that's got the volcanoes."

            "Thanks," the red-head boy said, looking as though he had a bad taste in his mouth, looking as though he'd much rather she go away.   He crossed out something on what Kayla assumed was an essay.  She thought the boy might be related to those two seventh year twins who kept offering her money to try their trick sweets.  After seeing what had happened to her dorm mate Leanna, she wasn't too keen to try.  Well, the hair was certainly the same.  

            "Look!" The girl pointed out a window, and Harry Potter and the boy with red hair looked over.

            "Isn't that Hermes?" asked the girl, sounded awestruck.

            The boy said something Kayla couldn't here.  Then he walked to the window, opened it and in flew an owl.  It landed upon his sheet of parchment and the boy detached the letter it had tied to its leg.  As suddenly as it had arrived, it flew off.  Kayla, the three fifth years, and a seventh year were the only ones left in the common room now.  The seventh year was scribbling furiously and Harry Potter and his friends were absorbed in read whatever the owl had brought.  Kayla sighed and looked into the dancing flames of the fire.  She was too tired to do anything more tonight, and she knew it was her own fault that she had so much work. She vowed never to read under the desk during class again.  But Snape's essay, she reminded herself, she had to finish it…

            Suddenly Kayla sat bolt upright in her chair.  A head, a head in the fire!!  Not just any head, but the head of SIRIUS BLACK, the mass murderer, criminal, the one whose name Kayla had grown up hearing uttered with almost as much fear as You-Know-Who's!! She blinked, and a second later, it was gone.  She stood up and rubbed her eyes.   She was definitely getting way too tired, she was starting to hallucinate!! There was no other explanation.  But she was SURE she had seen something in the fire.  Perhaps it was just a log, or…

            But she never got to finish her thought because her friend Gemma came down the girls' staircase towards her.  

            "Kayla!" she exclaimed.  "I couldn't sleep and you still hadn't come upstairs, so I thought I'd make sure you were okay!"

            "What?" asked Kayla, "Oh yeah, thanks Gem, I'm fine.  Just, tired that's all," she said, more to convince herself of the reason she had seen such an abnormal thing in the fire than to inform Gemma.  She glanced back over at the trio, who were once again deep in conversation.  

            "You coming?" Gemma asked impatiently, looking at expectantly at Kayla. 

            "Yeah, c'mon, let's go," Kayla replied, and gathering her books, parchment, and quill, followed Gemma up the girl's staircase.  And try as she might, she could not shake the thoughts of Sirius Black from her mind.   


End file.
